What kind of crazy person would jump out of bed on a Sunday morning at 8:15 to play tennis? To flesh out the picture a little more, today’s forecast predicted a high of 34 degrees. Without a cloud in the sky. High humidity was going to add another layer of...

Here’s a way to get the that delicious back stretch of Adho Mukha Svanasana without having to bear your own weight. Your back muscles will release simply because they are supported in letting go. You can do this pose over the back of a soft, stuffed chair or by...

It would be hard to imagine teaching a beginners yoga class without including the seated pose Dandasana. Why? Because it’s one of those poses that’s simple but still challenging. You start out relatively comfortably sitting on the floor, but then, you find...

One of the things that you just have to surrender to when you move to the country is travelling huge distances. (Other things to let go of: seeing art house films near-by and having interesting eateries to choose among. The solution – subscribe to Netflix and...

An article on the news today pointed to a problem that is troubling so many people in society these days – osteoarthritis. It’s not just my imagination. Statistics say that two million Australians currently have the disease. However, within 10 years that...

Recently I’ve become enamoured of a social media site called Pinterest. It does two things for me: 1) connects me with other lovers of images, and also (2) with lots of interesting, striking images. When I look at the Pinterest section devoted to yoga images, I...

Have you heard yoga teachers tell you to go into a deep bend at the hips and bring your hands to the floor and your head to your legs? I certainly have. The instructions imply great flexibility in hips and hamstrings. Sometimes we haven’t actually heard those...

I am reminded of the importance of good posture everyday in so many ways. Here in Tucson, Arizona, I’m visiting my older sister whose “bad back” has finally caught up with her. As a seventy-seven year old, and having exhausted many different...

Today’s blog is something new for me. I decided upon listening to one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs yesterday that I would update one of the most popular posts that I’ve written. It gives a nod to the composer’s well-loved tune, “Anthem”, which...

Amazing what you can do when you are given completely new hips. (Only kidding.) I’ve always thought that yoga poses are inherently funny. Sometimes I look around a class of students who have voluntarily submitted to being put into Kurmasana or Yoginidrasana or...

Here’s a quote I came across yesterday (apparently it’s the star that Julian Assange steers by). I like it very much and thought you might too: If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and...

I like joking. I think I have a reasonably good sense of humour. It’s fun to share a joke even with a stranger, like at the supermarket check-out; it’s an opportunity to brighten each other’s day. Ever since fears about terrorism have been so...

For me, the really ugly thing about being in pain isn’t the pain itself but the way it takes me out of relationship with people and the environment. I just want to go to ground and isolate myself, like an animal crawling down its lair. This is not the way I...